Issues from the seventh volume of the Workers' Dreadnought.
Including: Harry Pollitt on trade union bureaucracy and the formation of the British Communist Party, White Terror in Hungary, the Soviets of the street by Sylvia Pankhurst, international news, Christmas in Petrograd, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
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Including: The ILP at the crossroads by Sylvia Pankhurst, anti-direct action leaflets circulate in London, One Communist Party by Herman Gorter, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
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VOL VII No 2 Saturday April 3rd 1920.pdf
(23.48 MB)
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Including: Memories of Rosa Luxemberg and Leo Yogiches, the Workers Socialist Federation and anti-parliamentiarnaism, will allied workers cruch German revolution?, trade unions and revolution, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
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Including: the basis of communism by Herman Gorter, Sylvia Pankhurst on co-operative societies and revolution, trade unions and revolution continued, international news, Rosa Luxemberg and Leo Yogiches remembered continued, the two Internationals, the class struggle in Britain, etc. Supplement: East London in war time, five years in the South Wales coalfields, Glasgow rent strike.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
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Including: Herman Gorter's The Basis of Communism continued, memories of Rosa Luxemberg and Leo Yogiches continued, Claude McKay on black troops in Germany, Ireland and the government, etc. Supplement: the class struggle in Britain - a record of the last six years.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
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Including: a worker's view on the counter revolution in Germany, memories of Rosa Luxemberg and Leo Yogiches continued, notes from Scotland and South Wales, Sylvia Pankhurst on events in Russia, conscientious objectors and armed revolution, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
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VOL VII No 6 Saturday May 1st 1920.pdf
(25.91 MB)
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Including: Ireland: The achilles heel of England by Herman Gorter, May Labour Day in London, South Wales notes, a letter from Lenin, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
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VOL VII No 7 Saturday May 8th 1920.pdf
(24.59 MB)
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Including: Gorter's basis of communism continued, a letter from Lenin continued, London dock strike, communist unity by Inkpin, parliamentary and south Wales notes, the birth of the revolutionary movement in America, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
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VOL VII No 8 Saturday May 15th 1920.pdf
(25.52 MB)
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Including: Bela Kun on white terror in Hungary, the basis of communism by Herman Gorter continued, how the Italians strike, Sylvia Pankhurst on the dockers strike, Dreadnought raided by cops again, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
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VOL VII No 9 Saturday May 22nd 1920.pdf
(23.92 MB)
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Including: Irish workers seize control of butter production, Sylvia Pankhurst on the imprisonment of Dreadnought manager Harold Burgess, Bela Kun on white terror in Hungary continued, Gorter's the basis of communism continued, news from Moscow, etc.
NB: Incorrect issue number (9) but correct date on front cover.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
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VOL VII No 10 Saturday May 29th 1920.pdf
(25.68 MB)
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Including: pro-Soviet Russia propaganda, industrial unionism and the general strike by Mord Wilgus, white terror in Hungary by Bela Kun continued, the textile industry in Russia by V.P. Nogin, the Mexican revolution by Linn Gale, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
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VOL VII No 11 Saturday June 5th 1920.pdf
(25.44 MB)
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Including: National Union of Railwaymen reneges on aid promise, the boycott of parliament by Bela Kun, Russia news, Labour Party conference agenda, Ireland, etc.
The 19 June 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 13).
The 26 June 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 14).
Including: British Communist Party resolutions/programme, elections in Germany, Sylvia Pankhurst on war with Turkey, British delegation to Russia, Lenin on economics in the transition, white terror in Estonia, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue, but reproduce it for reference.
NB the LSE Digital Library Women's Rights Collection is missing issues from March-June 1920, so they are also missing from Libcom. If you can help fill this gap, let us know.
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The 10 July 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 16).
The 17 July 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 17).
The 24 July 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 18).
Including: Lenin's '"Left" Communism in England', open letter to delegates of the Unity Convention, Sylvia Pankhurst on the British government and Russia, the TUC and direct action, MP advocates boycott of Parliament, the rustic revolt by Charles Warwick, etc
This isssue is notable for its publication of part of Lenin's "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder. It is worth noting that subsequent issues of the Dreadnought also included Herman Gorter's rebuttal: Open letter to comrade Lenin.
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The 7 August 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 20).
Including: interview with Welsh miner Tom Watkins, elections and the dictatorship of the proletariat by Lenin, Russia and the allies, England and white terror in Hungary, South Wales notes, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
Including: Mining, Lukacz on the terror, Gorki on Tolstoy, Sylvia Pankhurst on co-operative housekeeping, Lenin on elections and the dictatorship of the proletariat pt 3, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
Some notes from Pankhurst on Lenin's pamphlet "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder, which appeared in the Vol. 7 No. 22 (21 August 1920) issue of the Workers' Dreadnought. Lenin's pamphlet had appeared earlier in Russian in June 1920 before being published in English in July of the same year. Lenin had criticized Pankhurst in Chapter 9 ("'Left-Wing' Communism in Great Britain") of his pamphlet for refusing to participate in parliament or associate with the Labour Party.
Infantile Sickness of the "Left."
Nicholai Lenin has certainly added to the gaiety of Communism by his treatise under this head. Whatever his brilliance of leadership of the Russian movement, his knowledge and judgement of British Communism is badly deficient.
To argue a tactics for revolutionaries over here from Russian tactics in the Russian Duma is unsound. The Russian Duma itself was, but a few short years before, won from Czardom through revolutionary effort. The experience Russians had had of a "Constituent Assembly" was therefore very limited and incomplete. Here every worker has had a bellyful of our hoary old institution of Parliament. His father had a bellyful before him. And his grandfather away before him. British workers are far from being the political babes Comrade Lenin seems to imagine.
A clear-cut call of "Down with Parliament, all Power to the Soviets," may well be made in six months time, if we get to work, and not after Henderson and Thomas,1 with their palliative dope, have endeavoured to queer the pitch. The fact that the Capitalists want the workers everywhere to participate in Parliament, want them to send Henderson, Thomas, and the group of fakirs, lawyers, Liberals, and other political sycophants who constitute the Labour Party, to power, is a good enough argument for us not to want them to do anything so suicidal to revolutionary triumph.
I sincerely trust that the "great influence" that some leaders wielded in the past, will be wielded by no future individual in the movement. British Revolutionary Communism, if I interpret its spirit aright, stands, probably more than the Communism of any other country, for strict discipline and subordination of ego to the movement, accurate infection by delegates of the letter and spirit of their instructions. Brilliant individual efforts from the star turns of the team are not wanted. Solid combination and sound team work are what the rank and file stand for. The sooner the whole movement is built up from bottom to top on sound Soviet principles, with recall of all delegates and persons entrusted with executive posts by the body delegating such powers to them, with strict Party control of all such delegates, the healthier for the movement.
Taken from the Workers' Dreadnought, Vol. 7 No. 22, 21 August 1920.
- 1Arthur Henderson and James Henry Thomas were Labour Party figures.—adri
Comments
With hindsight, it is easy to see the policy advocated by Lenin merely as Russian foreign policy, as a means of shoring up the restructured capitalist (Bolshevik) state.
Against the "Left", for revolutionary communism!
The 28 August 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 23).
The 4 September 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 24).
The 11 September 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 25).
The 18 September 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 26).
The 25 September 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 27).
The 2 October 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 28).
The 9 October 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 29).
The 16 October 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 30).
The 23 October 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 31).
The 30 October 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 32).
The 6 November 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 33).
Attachments
WD - Vol 7 No 33 - 6 November 1920.pdf
(12.72 MB)
Comments
Disregard the "No. 32" on the title page; it shows the correct number (33) on page 4.
The 13 November 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 34).
The 20 November 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 35)
Including: Sylvia Pankhurst and two comrades sentenced to six months, Upton Sinclair and mining, peace and trade with Russia?, communists in Ireland Labour Party, "the Bolsheviks and their doings", etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue, but reproduce it for reference.
Including: patriotism and Ireland, unemployment and increased production, communist parties and parliamentarianism, Bukharin on Russia and the world revolution, against labour bureaucracy, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
The 11 December 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 38).
Including: Russian economy, British Empire Union, the left wing of the Independent Labour Party, Communist Party news, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
The 25 December 1920 issue of the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. 7 No. 40)
Including: Karl Radek on Bertrand Russell, unemployment, John Reed on the world's congress of the Communist International, party notes, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
Including: education after the revolution in Russia, 9th congress of the Russian Communist Party, notes from the valleys, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
Including: Clara Zetkin on the deaths of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, establishing communist schools, Russia, democratising The Dreadnought, Robert Minor, a tribute to Sylvia Pankhurst and verbatim account of her court appeal, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
Including: Lenin on reactionary trade unions, unemployment, Dreadnought no longer the organ of the Communist Party, Russian Communist Party resolution on reconstruction, Sylvia Pankhurst in Holloway Prison, international news, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue, but reproduce it for reference.
Including: sedition and prisoners, The Red Army, Socialism in Danger by Domela Nieuwenhuis, Lenin on communists in unions pt 2, Russian Communist Party on economic reconstruction pt 2, international and industrial news, manifesto of the German anti-parliamentarians, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
Including: Unemployment and housing, Socialism in Danger by Domela Nieuwenhuis continued, Sylvia Pankhurst in prison, Lenin on unions continued, industrial and international news, report on Leeds Unity Convention, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
Including: why I am a communist by Leigh Rothwell, economic reconstruction in Russia continued, socialism in danger continued, communist prisoners including Sylvia Pankhurst, the International of Youth, Ogmore Valley notes, socialism vs Fabianism, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
Including: death of Peter Kropotkin, socialism in danger continued, labour leaders bolster capitalism, industrial and international news, young communists corner, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
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Premature obituaries is a pattern that repeats itself in the case of eminent figures of the working class movement. Peter Kropotkin, Karl Marx, Marcus Mosiah Garvey... All were put in their graves prematurely.
Including: social purity and women, communists split from socialists the world over, production in Russia, esperanto, boycott Spanish goods, To The Fools of England, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
Including: TUC and Labour party conference on unemployment, struggles over wages, socialism in danger continued, communists and the unemployed, resisting "The Norfolk Idea" (attempt to end the closed shop in Virginia), industrial and international news, etc.
We do not agree with all of the contents of this issue but reproduce it for reference.
Including: the economics of food and drink, communism for children, socialism in danger continued, tactics for the unemployed, Herman Gorter's open letter to comrade Lenin part one, why the cost of living is high, etc.
This is issue is notable for publishing the first section of Herman Gorter's Open Letter to Comrade Lenin - a response to his "Left Wing" Communism, an infantile disorder. The complete version of Gorter's text with introductions by Wildcat and Antagonism is available here.
Workers' Dreadnought would continue to publish Gorter's text in 11 instalments until 11 June 1921.
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